Willits Unified School District school board candidates participated in a question and answer forum Thursday, Oct. 18 at Willits High School. The event was sponsored by Willits Teachers Association (WTA), California Schools Employees Association (CSEA), Parent-Teacher Organizations (PTO) from Blosser Lane and Brookside elementary schools, and the American Association of University Women (AAUW) Willits Branch. Five candidates – Robert Chavez, Jeanne King, Dianne McNeal, Christopher Neary (incumbent), and Paula Nunez – are vying for three open long-term board positions. Two candidates – Bob Colvig (appointed incumbent) and Dany Laurent – are competing for one short-term board position.

During the first hour of the event each candidate had a chance give a two-minute opening statement in no particular order. The moderator stressed that “everything tonight here in terms of order is done randomly down to where the candidates sit. That is random seating. The order for opening statements and order for answering the questions is all random.”

The candidates then fielded 11 questions composed by the five sponsor organizations. They were asked about their thoughts regarding the primary duties of a school board member, the key issues currently facing the school district, how much money the district should keep in reserve, how to best respond to an upset parent, what to do with a hypothetical $1 million dollar windfall, whether they would support a new school bond for fixing and repairing facilities in the district, how they would deal with a hypothetical $300,000 budget cut, and how they would make themselves available for interaction and communication with stakeholders in the community.

King said she thinks the key issues are improving student academic scores and repairing existing facilities. “We are redirecting our district to improve our academic scores. We brought new curriculum into the school district to try to do that. We have improved the scheduling at the middle school. We brought back programs at the high school. We got a little bit behind and our scores started to go down and we are realigning ourselves…” said King. “I also think that our facilities need a tremendous amount of help. The newest school we have in the district is Blosser and that school is 30 years old…”

McNeal said she agrees with the state mandate of keeping a reserve of at least three percent. She said, “Three percent is a reasonable amount. If we have anything more than that, we can put it towards fixing and repairing facilities… We can hire more qualified teachers. We can get raises… Three percent would be your bottom line…”

Chavez, who has been a school administrator for more than 20 years, said he has been confronted by more than a few upset parents in his career. He said, “Quite honestly I was never upset, no matter how upset the parent was because the truth of what I have found is that parents come to you because they love their child. They love that child more than anyone else in the whole world so they come with a good heart. They are there for their child. So, as we respond, we need to respond in kind: that we care about their child. We want to make whatever the difficulty is or the complaint, we want to make it right for your child. So, in understanding as an administrator that we are all family… You try to make it better and maintain the family relationship.”

Neary joked that he has actually fallen asleep fantasizing about WUSD receiving a $1 million dollar windfall and thinks that if it happened in real life, the money would be best spent on repairing the district’s facilities. “I think one of the duties of the district, the board, the administrators and everyone is to send the message that we want our facilities in first class condition. So, that $1 million would go straight to the facilities, bottom line.,” said Neary.

Laurent’s platform is ‘students first’ and she said she would spend the $1 million first on students in order to meet their needs so they “feel safe and comfortable.” After that, she said the board should “definitely look at the facilities because we all know that our schools are quite old.”

Nunez admitted that the subject of school bonds was a controversial issue due to past mismanagement of the last school bond and said she would not support another bond. She said in the past there wasn’t enough money to take care of the issues the bond was created to do because “people weren’t understanding the costs of such a type of loan. I don’t think a whole lot of things have changed…” Nunez continued, saying, “I truly believe there are other alternatives we need to study a little more seriously first. There is money from the state; You have to learn how to ask for it. And, we also have just a tremendous maintenance department that’s larger than we’ve had in over 20 years and I believe they have the skills, or I would imagine that they have the skills, to do the majority of the work that needs to be done.”

Colvig said he’s had to deal with some major budget cuts in his long career as a teacher, school counselor, administrator and board member. “It’s always tough but you compile a list of possible cuts and input from everyone in the community and the local community and you try and make sure that the proposed cuts that you are examining have a minimal affect on students in their classroom.” said Colvig. “It sometimes gets very heated but you have to have all the stakeholders have some input into if we are going to cut back, where are we going to cutback and the logic behind making those cutbacks. It has to be a group activity.”

After a short intermission featuring refreshments provided by Blosser Lane and Brookside elementary PTOs, board candidates answered a handful of audience questions. Event organizer Dan Green, president of CSEA, said he thought this forum was necessary “because there are so many seats up for grabs.” “I think it’s really important for the community to get involved and figure this stuff out…” said Green. “There are huge issues (in the district).”

Third district supervisor candidate John Haschak attended the forum and said, “It’s great to have so many candidates for the positions because we’ve seen in the past there haven’t been enough candidates. It’s great to see what people’s views are and to have people from different sections of the community, so I like it.”

City of Willits Mayor Madge Strong said she decided to postpone submitting her ballot until after she attended the WUSD candidate forum. “It’s been very helpful because I don’t know all of the candidates personally and so you can find out their style and the background,” said Strong.

Superintendent Mark Westerburg said he also thought the forum was a great idea. “I’m glad people got here and got a chance to state their opinions on stuff… I like the fact that everybody responded to the questions and ultimately the community decides who represents them on a school board. There are some distinctly different opinions and so that’s a good thing. That means there’s a good cross representation…” said Westerburg.

Aura Whittaker has been in the newspaper business for about a decade. She learned the craft from the ground up as a proof reader and photo editor. and eventually put her health and fitness background to good use in a wellness column. After a move to Mendocino in 2015, she began freelance reporting for The Willits News and stepped up as city editor in 2018.